84 e lusive v ictories
negotiated settlement, and lay the groundwork for a new kind of
postwar order. His determination to assure that American businesses
would continue to trade abroad and maintain the rights of neutral
powers during wartime provoked confl icts with both sides. Most crit-
ically, the president allowed the choice of whether the United States
would be drawn into the war to slip from his hands. The German
decision to commence unrestricted submarine attacks in early 1917
forced him to ask Congress for a declaration of war. Wilson proclaimed
a lofty set of goals designed to do nothing less than make the world, as
he put it, “safe for democracy.” Because the objectives required support
from domestic and foreign political actors over whom he exercised
limited infl uence, it proved a riskier approach to a core leadership task
than he realized.
Once the United States entered the war, Wilson faced other key
tasks, tasks of a magnitude comparable to that which confronted
Lincoln in 1861: creating the military force needed to secure the war
aims he established and selecting its senior commanders, organizing the
economy to produce the means this force would need to fi ght, defi ning
the military strategy that would accomplish his war aims, making
certain that military operations were properly directed to accomplish
his objectives, and managing relations with allies. On the whole the
president and his administration addressed the challenges eff ectively.
Th e United States achieved an impressive mobilization of resources,
both human and economic, within a brief time; a substantial American
army was in the fi eld in about fi fteen months, though barely in time to
infl uence the outcome. As a military commander in chief, too, Wilson
accomplished exactly what he set out to do, using military force to
secure an end to the fi ghting on his terms and positioning himself to
play a key role in the postwar peace conference.
Wilson’s eff ort to maintain public support for the war and for his
broader objectives yielded more mixed results. To promote popular
enthusiasm, the administration mounted a broad publicity campaign
that included establishing the fi rst offi cial wartime propaganda organ.
But faced with signifi cant criticism of mobilization eff orts and with
opposition to the war, Wilson became defensive. He turned the war
into a partisan issue in the 1918 congressional elections, alienating
Republicans. His administration also launched a sweeping assault on